Are you living in full trust and full hope in God today? Moses lived and died in full trust and full hope that God would do what he promised. A life of faith is oftentimes not a life of great reward, though, and Moses did not see what was promised. And still he had faith…
23 By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.
24 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. 25 He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. 26 He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. 27 By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible. 28 By faith he kept the Passover and the application of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel.
29 By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned.
Hebrews 11:23-29
Moses’ life was a life of faith from his beginning. When he was born, his parents hid him and then floated him down the Nile, that he would not be killed under the king’s edict. One can imagine how that would have affected him as he learned his own story.
As an adult, Moses chose to identify with God’s people – his own people – even though they were mistreated by his Egyptian royal family. Our author of Hebrews links Moses’ action to the sake of Christ. This is odd language, as Moses could not, by what we read of his life, have known of the Son of God. We see here, though, that Moses “saw him who is invisible.” As Moses did encounter the glory of God and interacted with him directly, perhaps he did, in fact, see the triune nature of the Lord. Perhaps his understanding of God as Saviour included an understanding that the Son is that one who is the rescuer of God’s children… perhaps.
However this worked, it resulted in Moses exemplifying incredible faith to be mistreated, to keep the first Passover, and to leave Egypt. He led the people of Israel through the Red Sea on dry land. In small part (nothing compared to the promised land or to heaven) Moses saw the reward of his faith in the Red Sea experience. Yet like the rest of our faith examples in Hebrews 11, Moses did not see what was promised. He did not enter the promised land.
A life of faith is oftentimes not a life of great reward. Sometimes the testimony of faith in action is God’s purpose, and the reward belongs to the recipients of that example. The next generation gets to experience the blessing when the witness is passed on.
We see this in Moses’ life. His life started in faith and ended in faith, yet the ending was in faith that had not yet been fulfilled. Moses died in full trust and full hope that God would do what he promised. In fact, that is how Moses lived and how he died.
Are you living in full trust and full hope in God today?
Amen.
Marc Kinna
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